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[The Librarian]

Amazon.com posted the summary of Primordium today:

Spoiler

A long time ago, I was a living, breathing human being. I went mad. I served my enemies. They became my only friends.

Since then, I’ve traveled back and forth across this galaxy, and out to the spaces between galaxies--a greater reach than any human before me.

You have asked me to tell you about that time. Since you are the last true Reclaimer, I must obey. Are you recording? Good. Because my memory is failing rapidly. I doubt I’ll be able to finish the story.

Once, on my birth-world, a world I knew as Erde-Tyrene, and which now is called Earth, my name was Chakas...

In the wake of apparent self-destruction of the Forerunner empire, two humans--Chakas and Riser--are like flotsam washed up on very strange shores indeed.

Captured by the Master Builder, misplaced during a furious battle in space, they now find themselves on an inverted world where horizons rise into the sky, and where humans of all kinds are trapped in a perilous cycle of horror and neglect. For they have become both research animals and strategic pawns in a cosmic game whose madness knows no end--a game of ancient vengeance between the powers who seeded the galaxy with life, and the Forerunners who expect to inherit their sacred Mantle of duty to all living things.

In the company of a young girl and an old man, Chakas begins an epic journey across a lost and damaged Halo in search of a way home, an explanation for the warrior spirits rising up within, and for the Librarian’s tampering with human destiny.

This journey will take them into the Palace of Pain, the domain of a powerful and monstrous intelligence who claims to be the Last Precursor, and who now has control of both this Halo and the fate of Forerunners and Humans alike.

Called the Captive by Forerunners, and the Primordial by ancient human warriors, this intelligence has taken charge of, and retasked, the Master Builder’s cruel researches into the Flood--which it may have itself unleashed on the galaxy more than ten thousand years before.

Credit goes to a HBO user.

Sweetness.

 

[Hypertrooper]

Right now, I'm getting very hyped for Halo 4. As a Halo Fan I'll get a lot of information or teases via Halo: Primordium and Halo: Glasslands. And I know, that the year till the Halo 4 release will be a hell again like Halo 3. Remember the "servers"? I hope we will get this ARG campaign again. Working together to get a new glimpse of the Forerunner and the Flood was awesome. And about the summary of the second Forerunner book...

Spoiler

The last true reclaimer

is such a big tease. I hope we won't find out, who

Spoiler

the last true reclaimer

is. We all think about one person right now. But there is an excitement, that it could be a different person. Maybe it is. The Sparkast 05 hyped me for Glasslands. The terminal sneek peak hyped me for Halo:CE:A. And then on the horizont we have the HaloFEST. What will we get? Will we come out with joy? Or will the hell start with the Halo 4 panel? Will we be scratching to get every small tidbits of Halo 4? I don't know.

 

[Tawpgun]

What buff would you guys rather have for the pistol if you could only have one, not both -- mag increase or damage increase?

Mag.

 

[Tha Robbertster]

As a player from the UK dedicated servers sometimes feel like they can be worse than peer to peer matchmaking. Its also a pretty expensive undertaking to have them. Maybe im off the mark and they do add value, but personally I dont get what the fuss is about? Localized servers are a ton better but even then there is still a huge difference in ping.

Also Halo Primordium sounds amazing,

Spoiler

are we going to swap characters? :O I wonder how Born/ Didact will come across from the 3rd person.

That xbl chart thing seems weird, it lists black ops as my most played game and yet my single player gametime dwarfs my multiplayer time. I have been playing a lot of single player but the amount its dwarfing multiplayer is crazy high.

Spoiler

I think so, reading the Halo 3 terminals again sure makes it seem that way. We still dont know too much about what the Didact planned with the shield worlds and why they went wrong. From what I understand we have about 300 years before the Flood Forerunner finale when the rings where fired, which is a huge amount of time to cover in just 2 books.

Spoiler

There are enough other forerunner worlds left I think. The planet which Bornstellar came from and many others.

 

[FyreWulff]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ug1ZnyY2EA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SAX6tuQofU

You can see a thumbnail of the interface in the second video:

 

[squidhands]

What buff would you guys rather have for the pistol if you could only have one, not both -- mag increase or damage increase?

I'd take a clip size increase over damage increase any day. It's virtually impossible to get a double kill on two shielded opponents, which imo damages the overall usefulness of the pistol as a backup weapon. Just a couple of extra bullets would do the trick, really.

 

[op_ivy]

I'd take a clip size increase over damage increase any day. It's virtually impossible to get a double kill on two shielded opponents, which imo damages the overall usefulness of the pistol as a backup weapon. Just a couple of extra bullets would do the trick, really.

i agree. not sure why the clip size was decreased from the beta.... maybe to give AR toting newbs a better chance thereby making the game more accessible?

 

[ncsuDuncan]

http://i.imgur.com/puReI.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ug1ZnyY2EA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SAX6tuQofU

You can see a thumbnail of the interface in the second video:

http://i.imgur.com/QTWE9.jpg

Whoa, I knew about saved films but I had not seen that dedicated server stuff before. Just shows how ambitious Halo 2 was. It's crazy how revolutionary it was for online multiplayer and they still left that much on the cutting room floor.

----------
That Halo: Primordium summary from Amazon is great. The setup really reminds me of

Spoiler

Ringworld, with the small group of humans (one of which is old) stranded on an alien construct.

Very cool.

 

[Willeth]

FFS, region bullshit, can't join rewards at all.

What in all shit? Ireland being locked out of stuff the mainland UK gets is some crazy nonsense.

I've always been of the opinion that if a console Halo ever does dedicated servers, you should be able to send your box into matchmaking as a dedicated server, and you earn EXP/whatever for consistently hosting games.

None of that BS with Battlefield/Section 8 though where they're all MS hosted or you can only rent them from a provider. I want to be able to set my Xbox to playlist mode and it rotates through gametypes for anybody that joins me via a the friends list (this functionality was cut from Halo 2 Xbox).


They wouldn't solve client to client networking issues, all they'd really do is add a tad more consistency to the host decisions. I'd be more interested in the "running a personal playlist" attribute.

That would fucking rule. We could cook up all the best map/gametype combinations for customs ahead of time and just let it run, with the standard matchmaking voting system and everything.

 

[Zeouterlimits]

What in all shit? Ireland being locked out of stuff the mainland UK gets is some crazy nonsense.

I know!
╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

 

[Stinkles]

This is my best guess at what they mean:

Not too far off.

 

[kylej]

Not too far off.

Will the forge objects be grey with varying shades of silver?

 

[Stinkles]

Will the forge objects be grey with varying shades of silver?

They were going to match the rest of the level but as luck would have it, I read your post just as we were finishing the map, so we quickly swapped out the textures and lighting and now it looks the way you requested. Approved and final. Thanks for last second improvement.

 

[Tunavi]

They were going to match the rest of the level but as luck would have it, I read your post just as we were finishing the map, so we quickly swapped out the textures and lighting and now it looks the way you requested. Approved and final. Thanks for last second improvement.

kyle holy shit, ask for bloom gone asap

 

[kylej]

They were going to match the rest of the level but as luck would have it, I read your post just as we were finishing the map, so we quickly swapped out the textures and lighting and now it looks the way you requested. Approved and final. Thanks for last second improvement.

As someone who considers himself an expert in Halo textures, I doubt this post. I know Halo games have had some luck with rusty forge objects however, so I'm kinda hoping we get some rust objects mixed in with the grey.

I can picture it now:

Beaver Creek. Set in the middle of the ocean on a rusty platform. In the arctic. At midnight.

Gold. Ship it. 8 million+ seller.

 

[Deputy Moonman]

i agree. not sure why the clip size was decreased from the beta.... maybe to give AR toting newbs a better chance thereby making the game more accessible?

If only accessibility equated to popularity. And I'm not talking about the popularity of the AR

Spoiler

since it's enormously popular with the BK's

 

[Tawpgun]

I'd take a clip size increase over damage increase any day. It's virtually impossible to get a double kill on two shielded opponents, which imo damages the overall usefulness of the pistol as a backup weapon. Just a couple of extra bullets would do the trick, really.

Yup.

AR can kill 2 full health people assuming every shot hits the target.

Pistol can't.

I'd love 15 shots. 12 would be ok. 10 bare minimum. Modern pistols can easily hold this.

 

[MrBig]

I don't want the cross mapping 3-shot kill weapon that was H1's magnum. Clip increase would be great.

 

[i nerini del buio]

Yup.

AR can kill 2 full health people assuming every shot hits the target.

Pistol can't.

I'd love 15 shots. 12 would be ok. 10 bare minimum. Modern pistols can easily hold this.

12 would be cool, but it would make spamming in cqc viable too

 

[PooBone]

kyle holy shit, ask for bloom gone asap

Pretty sure Frankie was being sarcastic, to combat kyle's snark.

 

[Stinkles]

Pretty sure Frankie was being sarcastic, to combat kyle's snark.

Pretty sure Tunavi was being glib, to combat Frankie's sarcasm.

 

[Tawpgun]

12 would be cool, but it would make spamming in cqc viable too

No different than spraying that auto aiming AR. Might get a lucky headshot. That's bloom for you.

 

[PooBone]

Colossus

mmmmmmm I loved Colossus. I think I'm in the minority though. It was one of my favorite maps in Halo 2 (which had the best maps in the entire series.)

 

[squidhands]

Yup.

AR can kill 2 full health people assuming every shot hits the target.

Pistol can't.

I'd love 15 shots. 12 would be ok. 10 bare minimum. Modern pistols can easily hold this.

I'd take the DMR-sized clip from the beta. Why do the ODST's get all the good clips?

 

[PooBone]

I'm going to firmly put you in the extreme minority there haha. I haven't met a single person that didn't like the show.

I didn't care for it either.

Just listened to the podcast, it has me so hyped. I cant wait for Glasslands. Seems like it will really go a lot of different places.

Also, the music reminded me.. I want Halo Wars 2. Just tie Kinect to it and MS will green-light it for sure! But seriously, I could see that working.

That just led me to another thought. Will we ever see a Halo film? Its still so disappointing that that it fell through. I think District 9 proves it would have been very compelling.

Hush

Pretty sure Tunavi was being glib, to combat Frankie's sarcasm.

Pretty sure you're right, to combat my wrong.

 

[Homeboyd]

Pretty sure Tunavi was being glib, to combat Frankie's sarcasm.

Pretty sure Im still waiting on a render of a particular custom game.

Also, Forge items... are we talking crates, barrels and chairs.. or walls, ramps and platforms?

 

[i nerini del buio]

No different than spraying that auto aiming AR. Might get a lucky headshot. That's bloom for you.

I agree, mind you...
If only I had the power, I would confine the assault rifle into single player and firefight. But sadly we all know what's the only weapon that have been consistently buffed during these 10 years of halo XD
buffing pistol = nerfing AR <-- not going to happen, ever

They've been consistently trying to get the AR back to the badassery of the MA5B in Halo 1. Hasn't happened yet.

that was badass because of how it sounded and looked

 

[PooBone]

I agree, mind you...
If only I had the power, I would confine the assault rifle into single player and firefight. But sadly we all know what's the only weapon that have been consistently buffed during these 10 years of halo XD
buffing pistol = nerfing AR <-- not going to happen, ever

They've been consistently trying to get the AR back to the badassery of the MA5B in Halo 1. Hasn't happened yet.

 

[squidhands]

Pretty sure Im still waiting on a render of a particular custom game.

Also, Forge items... are we talking crates, barrels and chairs.. or walls, ramps and platforms?

I would like to obtain this knowledge as well. Since there are teleporter rooms carved out of the cliff side in BC, it seems logical to assume that there will be at least some structural objects to forge with (rocks) to make the map play in Classic mode.

 

[FyreWulff]

Just for shits and giggles, I went and got the same shot in CE:

Spoiler

makes you wonder if the OS in Classic mode is going to be where it was in 1 or 2

 

[Miggytronz]

Seems like i need to catch up on my Forerunner info. Cryptum sounds amazing.

 

[Zeouterlimits]

Spoiler

makes you wonder if the OS in Classic mode is going to be where it was in 1 or 2

I only hope it looks the same...

 

[PooBone]

Seems like i need to catch up on my Forerunner info. Cryptum sounds amazing.

It is.

 

[FyreWulff]

I only hope it looks the same...

ZOOM



ENHANCE

 

[Plywood]

What difference would dedicated servers make? Are you talking about company-hosted dedicated servers or user-hosted? Providing company-hosted dedicated servers for a Halo game would be a massive undertaking and the only presumable benefits would be a removal of host advantage (which has been minimized through game design already, and players who ping lower to the server would still have the same advantages) and a reduction/elimination of host migration (which depends on the reliability of the servers). Please elaborate.

I want a clear cut consistent experience out of the premier Halo franchise which was the franchise to put the Xbox on the map.

I don't want to experience another laggy game ever. I want non-laggy 8v8 BTB. I want non laggy 2v2 games, how lag even happens in 2v2 is beyond me, especially when I have the Good Connection filter on.

The fact is Barrow Roll is going to owe me a dollar if Halo 4 releases with no dedicated servers because I won't be there day one. You can all pretend that the netcode will ever match a dedicated server but you'll just be lying to yourselves.

 

[Deputy Moonman]

I don't want the cross mapping 3-shot kill weapon that was H1's magnum. Clip increase would be great.

Getting kills across the map with Halo1's magnum was not nearly as easy as people make it out to be. With as much hate as some people give the pistol (not saying you btw), you'd think it could shoot through walls and set players on fire. The pistol had range, but not blood gulch base to base range. Even sniping across that map with a sniper rifle wasn't easy. With good map design, cross map kills are not as big of a problem. And personally, I think the pistol is what made the bigger maps like Hang'em High so awesome. Without the pistol, it would just be people running all over the place to get in rang of each other (same with boarding action, unless it was a sniper rifle game). The DMR is far more of a problematic cross map weapon in my opinion.

 

[ElRenoRaven]

EMBIGGEN

http://i.imgur.com/8Q2yFl.jpg[IMG][/URL][/QUOTE]

You know that's the big WTF with Halo 3 and Reach for me. There are things I like and things I hate and just things that make me go WTF. That was one of those things. The shapes of the invisibility and overshield pickups was iconic and Bungie went to floating balls. That just didn't make any sense to me.

[QUOTE=Deputy Moonman]Getting kills across the map with Halo1's magnum was not nearly as easy as people make it out to be. With as much hate as some people give the pistol (not saying you btw), you'd think it could shoot through walls and set players on fire. The pistol had range, but not blood gulch base to base range. Even sniping across that map with a sniper rifle wasn't easy. With good map design, cross map kills are not as big of a problem. And personally, I think the pistol is what made the bigger maps like Hang'em High so awesome. Without the pistol, it would just be people running all over the place to get in rang of each other (same with boarding action, unless it was a sniper rifle game). The DMR is [I]far[/I] more of a problematic cross map weapon in my opinion.[/QUOTE]

You're right. That's why I always laugh when people are like oh the pistol. It's impossible to take someone using it out cause you're dead the second he sees you. That's bullshit and always has been. I regularly took out pistol users with ease. It really wasn't near as hard as people made it out to be. If anything it's harder to take out a BR/DMR user then it ever was a pistol user.

 

[Syracuse022]

Getting kills across the map with Halo1's magnum was not nearly as easy as people make it out to be. With as much hate as some people give the pistol (not saying you btw), you'd think it could shoot through walls and set players on fire. The pistol had range, but not blood gulch base to base range. Even sniping across that map with a sniper rifle wasn't easy. With good map design, cross map kills are not as big of a problem. And personally, I think the pistol is what made the bigger maps like Hang'em High so awesome. Without the pistol, it would just be people running all over the place to get in rang of each other (same with boarding action, unless it was a sniper rifle game). The DMR is far more of a problematic cross map weapon in my opinion.

QFT. The people who act like 3-shot-instant-death was a regular occurrence on large maps need to learn how to not run in straight lines.

 

[The Henery]

Getting kills across the map with Halo1's magnum was not nearly as easy as people make it out to be. With as much hate as some people give the pistol (not saying you btw), you'd think it could shoot through walls and set players on fire. The pistol had range, but not blood gulch base to base range. Even sniping across that map with a sniper rifle wasn't easy. With good map design, cross map kills are not as big of a problem. And personally, I think the pistol is what made the bigger maps like Hang'em High so awesome. Without the pistol, it would just be people running all over the place to get in rang of each other (same with boarding action, unless it was a sniper rifle game). The DMR is far more of a problematic cross map weapon in my opinion.

The truth

 

[ncsuDuncan]

FYI, new thread on the gaming side:

Halo CE Anniversary Terminal trailer released

Thread starter is one of the Terminal animators (from Sequence, I assume).

Best post in the thread:

Wait... 343 Industries... Guilty Spark 343...

lol

 

[MrBig]

You're right about it not being a problem in Halo 1. But you have to put it into context. The BR/DMR took it's role as a long range single shot weapon. There shouldn't be too many weapons in that category. Currently there are two. A third would detract to the gamplay experience more than the DMR's range already does. It would mean players having one weapon with amazing range and damage and one with buffed damage and accuracy in cqc-midrange encounters.

Bigger clip would be a better solution because it would give you that attribute of the H1 magnum and the actual side-arm role of the Reach magnum.

 

[PooBone]

Getting kills across the map with Halo1's magnum was not nearly as easy as people make it out to be. With as much hate as some people give the pistol (not saying you btw), you'd think it could shoot through walls and set players on fire. The pistol had range, but not blood gulch base to base range. Even sniping across that map with a sniper rifle wasn't easy. With good map design, cross map kills are not as big of a problem. And personally, I think the pistol is what made the bigger maps like Hang'em High so awesome. Without the pistol, it would just be people running all over the place to get in rang of each other (same with boarding action, unless it was a sniper rifle game). The DMR is far more of a problematic cross map weapon in my opinion.

Ditto. And because of the more realistic and smaller hit boxes in Halo: CE, pistol users were required to not just have the right weapon but also be masters of it in order to dominate. Biggest thing I hated about Halo 2 was the power weapons. If you had a sword you were instantly more powerful than everyone else, but in Halo 1 the balance was there that anyone with any weapon could take out a less skilled player, regardless of the weapons either possessed. But some of the elements I loved about Halo CE's multiplayer simply had to be dropped or change to allow for the game to a.) go online and work. and b.)be played and by a wider audience. In Goldeneye, you were the best player in the world if you were better than the 3 guys you played with. In Halo: CE, you were the best player in the world if you were better than the 15 people at the LAN party. In Halo 2 and onward, you are not and will never be the best player in the world, there's always somebody better, so things had to be adjusted to allow less skilled players to still have fun and occasionally win over the more talented opponents. It's one of the reasons it was so successful, whether I like it or not.

Sorry for the ramblings.

 

[FyreWulff]

You know that's the big WTF with Halo 3 and Reach for me. There are things I like and things I hate and just things that make me go WTF. That was one of those things. The shapes of the invisibility and overshield pickups was iconic and Bungie went to floating balls. That just didn't make any sense to me.

I don't think they ever answered why because nobody really ever asked them.

I always assumed it was for visibility - the Halo 1/2 versions of OS and Camo were nice, but as the map detail increased they became harder to see.

So you simplify the shape (so it LODs well) and make it bigger, now you've improved the visibility and LOD-ness of the object.

One little detail I always liked about the Halo 3 OS is that little sound it makes when it spawns, that BWOOOMP sound. Bungie also made it so it makes that BWOOOMP sound when you respawn, so you always knew if an OS was available nearby when you spawned.

 

[Syracuse022]

You're right about it not being a problem in Halo 1. But you have to put it into context. The BR/DMR took it's role as a long range single shot weapon. There shouldn't be too many weapons in that category. Currently there are two. A third would detract to the gamplay experience more than the DMR's range already does. It would mean players having one weapon with amazing range and damage and one with buffed damage and accuracy in cqc-midrange encounters.

Bigger clip would be a better solution because it would give you that attribute of the H1 magnum and the actual side-arm role of the Reach magnum.

You're acting like the TU offering has to apply to the entirety of Reach - if they're making Reach versions in addition to classic versions of the new maps for use in different playlists, what's to stop them from including an M6D for the classic playlists and excluding the needle rifle and DMR from the classic weapon layouts?

Spoiler

If this happens, the Reach disc will never enter my system tray again

I don't think they ever answered why because nobody really ever asked them.

I always assumed it was for visibility - the Halo 1/2 versions of OS and Camo were nice, but as the map detail increased they became harder to see.

So you simplify the shape (so it LODs well) and make it bigger, now you've improved the visibility and LOD-ness of the object.

One little detail I always liked about the Halo 3 OS is that little sound it makes when it spawns, that BWOOOMP sound. Bungie also made it so it makes that BWOOOMP sound when you respawn, so you always knew if an OS was available nearby when you spawned.

Oh wow, this potential explanation makes a lot of sense actually...

 

[MrBig]

You're acting like the TU offering has to apply to the entirety of Reach - if they're making Reach versions in addition to classic versions of the new maps for use in different playlists, what's to stop them from including an M6D for the classic playlists and excluding the needle rifle and DMR from the classic weapon layouts?

Spoiler

If this happens, the Reach disc will never enter my system tray again

Because Classic mode is only a part of the game I will address it as only a part of the game. Just because the pistol as-is is not great for classic modes doesn't mean it's great for the rest of Reach. There are problems with it there as well.

 

[wwm0nkey]

Posted this in the other thread but it finally looks like we get to see what happened to Keys in Halo CEA

 

[User 73706]

Maybe we'll get to use the flamethrower to burn the Keyes Blob this time around!

 

[squidhands]

I don't think they ever answered why because nobody really ever asked them.

I always assumed it was for visibility - the Halo 1/2 versions of OS and Camo were nice, but as the map detail increased they became harder to see.

So you simplify the shape (so it LODs well) and make it bigger, now you've improved the visibility and LOD-ness of the object.

One little detail I always liked about the Halo 3 OS is that little sound it makes when it spawns, that BWOOOMP sound. Bungie also made it so it makes that BWOOOMP sound when you respawn, so you always knew if an OS was available nearby when you spawned.

I loved that detail. It worked with all the power-ups and it was such an ingenious decision to make. I also really liked the humming sound they make when you're near them, too. The ambient noise in the Halo games are second to none, really.

 

[Booties]

As someone who considers himself an expert in Halo textures, I doubt this post. I know Halo games have had some luck with rusty forge objects however, so I'm kinda hoping we get some rust objects mixed in with the grey.

I can picture it now:

Beaver Creek. Set in the middle of the ocean on a rusty platform. In the arctic. At midnight.

Gold. Ship it. 8 million+ seller.

Get this man a corner office. Fire shishka. Kill all umpires.

FUCK YOU TUNAVI. Best record is baseball says lincecum is a little weed smokin perv boy

 

[Stinkles]

Because Classic mode is only a part of the game I will address it as only a part of the game. Just because the pistol as-is is not great for classic modes doesn't mean it's great for the rest of Reach. There are problems with it there as well.

TU is designed for Anniversary classic hopper stuff, but will apply to Reach universally and elements of it will be available to regular Reach players. Core Reach gameplay will remain unaffected except via matchmaking hoppers.